There and Back Again ...: Our First Day in Paris

Good Morning Paris!

The view from our room the first morning.

I just thought these windows were so pretty! :)

We checked out and started making our way to the next Hostel so we could drop our bags! :)

We passed the Gare du Nord train station on our way so we snapped a photo! :)

This is the locker we were able to keep our bags while we explored Paris.

This is a picture of the ticket office where we got our tickets for the train this week! :) We got the 5 day ticket pass.

Paris is really nasty ... their train stations are no exception.

We were waiting for our first train

Nathan pointed out that the tracks were full sized train tracks not like the normal subway tracks. Pretty cool! :)

Some cool Buildings while we walked around.

As we walked around, this was our very first view of the Eiffel tower!! So of course we took a picture!! :)

View from the grassy area in the front! :) Everyone sits around here eating lunch or taking naps it's a pretty area!

We got tourist trapped! This guy came up to us and made Nathan hold string while he made him a bracelet and talked to us about where we were from. At first we didn't really know what was going on until another guy came up to me and put a bracelet on me ... then they asked for money. All we had was 2 Euro coins ... he wasn't very happy with us but that was all we had haha ... We think that 2 Euro is still WAY too much for string. After that we learned to ALWAYS say "No!" with a "Merci" because that's the nice thing to do, for us and them, no matter how pushy they are! :)

We decided that will keep our bracelets on the rest of the time we are here so that we can remember not to get caught again and so that if it happens again we can show them we already have one.

Close up picture! With the Eiffel tower.

We stood in line for quite a while to get our tickets to the top. They had security 2 different places along the way.

These are our tickets!! Pretty cool!! :)

Yup we walked all the way up to the first 2 floors and the 3rd and final floor had an elevator! :) I couldn't resist snapping a photo of the first couple stairs of our journey up the Eiffel Tower!

The view from the first floor!

Cool sign on the first floor

View without the gate from the 2nd floor

The other side from the 2nd floor, that's the Palais de Chaillot.

Waiting in line to get to the top.

View from the 2nd floor.

This Elevator brought us to the top of the Eiffel tower I have never seen an elevator so full!!! Literally like sardines in a can.

We made it to the top and this is what it looks like when you look straight up!

This is the view down with us in it! :)

There were a couple locks on the gates as we looked out! I thought this lock was really cool!

View from the top! That is the grassy area we first walked on to get to the Eiffel tower.

I love him so much! He is loving all of this and having time to take pictures again!! If you didn't know he is a pretty good photographer to!! :)

Another photo of us! :) (This one is my favorite)

We wanted more of the background so we took pictures individually! :)

Love him!

This is how high up we were

Everyone says to kiss at the top of the Eiffel Tower, so we took a picture to document our kiss! ;)

This was really cool, when we got in line to head back down from the Eiffel Tower we took a sideways elevator. I thought it was really cool to see how it worked. ie the big yellow wheels above the doors! :)

No one here knows about personal space! The elevators were always packed full!! This one was actually not as full as most usually are.

One more shot from the foot of the Eiffel Tower as we came out from the elevator.

Nathan took this amazing photo from the center of the grassy area.

and another! :) He is so good!

After the Eiffel tower we walked across the street to ordered lunch! We had a ham, cheese and tomato panini! This was the little stand we bought it from! *Side Note* Nutella is really popular here, it's everywhere! :)

We were hungry so we only took a picture of the bag haha

It was a lot of fun to sit on a park bench with the Eiffel Tower to our left and the Palais de Chaillot to our right!! We ate our lunch watched the birds and just enjoyed everything around us! :) It was very relaxing.

This is the bench

Palais de Chaillot and it's fountains.

Nathan and I thought that this would be an interesting photo to take because many years ago Hitler himself stood by the wall just past the gates. It was really weird knowing that this place many years ago was the same place Hitler stood .. really weird, but cool. If you want to see the picture of Hitler here is the link: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/tr/a/a2/Hitler_Paris.jpg

One of us together.

After the Eiffel Tower we went to visit the Arc de Triomphe.

We couldn't get very close because they were doing some sort of ceremony in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier.

We decided we would try McDonalds in Paris ... It was okay... :)

We found the Disney store so naturally we went in! Nathan found Darth Vader...

I found Mary Poppins :)

This is a view from one of the streets as we were walking around! :)

A large palace, now theater, we think?

Another palace

Cool statue at the beginning of a bridge that is said to be one of the most decorated bridges in Paris, possibly even the world. Its the Pont Alexandre III bridge.